


Butterfly In Reverse

by carolinecrane



Series: Devotion [9]
Category: Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-04
Updated: 2012-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-28 22:40:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/312963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carolinecrane/pseuds/carolinecrane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ares' and Joxer's friendship hits a snag, and Ares comes to a decision about what he wants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Butterfly In Reverse

Joxer knew he should be used to strange things happening to him. He'd never expected to be on a first-name basis with as many gods as he was, for instance, and he hadn't really expected to find himself traveling around the countryside with one of War's strongest warriors. Okay, so technically Xena was an ex-warrior, but she was Ares' daughter and that was a pretty big deal. When he'd left home at sixteen he hadn't really expected to live out the winter, but somehow he'd managed to avoid getting himself killed or starving to death for the past fifteen years. Sometimes his dumb luck was so unlikely that over the years he'd wondered if there was someone looking out for him, and now that he'd been to Olympus he was even more certain that his 'luck' had never been just luck at all.

The question wasn't so much who'd been looking out for him all this time, especially after his second conversation with Ares. No, the real question was why, but no matter how he asked he hadn't been able to get a straight answer out of anyone who might know. Aphrodite changed the subject any time he even mentioned Ares' name, and he was almost sure Strife had been avoiding him for the past few days. He'd seen Ares every day, though, and even though his visits were never very long Joxer found himself looking forward to them a little more with each passing day.

He'd never expected Ares to notice him, much less treat him like an equal. But during their conversations it was easy to forget that Ares was a god, the same god Joxer had spent his entire life worshipping. He made Joxer feel so much less awkward and stupid than he usually felt, as though Ares actually cared about his opinions. It seemed impossible that Ares would care about what Joxer thought about anything, but it wasn't any more surprising than the fact that Ares had protected him all these years.

Maybe he shouldn't have been so shocked to find out that he'd been under Ares' protection; after all, he was dedicated to War and he'd always been loyal in spite of his friends' objections. So the real surprise was that Ares had noticed how loyal Joxer was, and that he appreciated that loyalty in spite of the fact that Joxer was a terrible warrior. He seemed to appreciate the fact that Joxer tried; he seemed to have been paying a lot closer attention than Joxer ever would have suspected, because he knew things that even Joxer had forgotten about. The fact that Ares had been watching him all this time, listening to his prayers and keeping him safe would have made him self-conscious, but Ares had a way of making him feel completely at ease about the attention. He hadn't been so comfortable with someone since Timo, and he never thought he'd find someone he could talk to like that again.

Which was why he had to ask Aphrodite to send him back, because if he kept spending time with Ares something was going to happen that his god most definitely would not appreciate. It was one thing for him to take pity on a loyal follower, but if he found out that Joxer was actually attracted to him…that just couldn't happen, that was all there was to it. He just had to go back to his life and forget about it. It was just because he felt like he'd just lost the love of his life all over again, and in a strange way Ares reminded him a little of the boy that had been his first real friend. There was something about the way Ares spoke, the way he looked at Joxer sometimes that reminded him of Timo. That was no reason to develop a crush, but since he couldn't stop it he had to leave.

It was the only way, and he was going to tell Aphrodite as soon as he saw her again. He'd put it off for days, since the time Ares told him that he'd been keeping watch over Joxer since he left home. He'd always known that Ares heard his prayers, but somehow knowing just how much Ares had done for him made it even harder not to react to his attraction. It was one thing for Ares to watch over a child that had been dedicated to him at birth, but he'd answered Joxer's prayer for protection for someone else, someone that Ares had no obligation to.

At least Joxer didn't think Ares had an obligation to Timo, although the truth was he didn't know much about Timo. He'd never said much about his family, and now Joxer knew why; he'd never had one to talk about. There was no telling where he'd been living before Ares' priests took him in, where he'd gotten the food he brought with him every time they met or what happened to him after Joxer left him to go to his own house. His family had never been ideal, but at least Joxer had had a roof over his head and somewhere more or less safe to sleep. Timo didn't have anything, but he'd never once complained about it.

There were many times over the years that Joxer wished he could just see Timo one more time, just to make sure he was okay and that he understood why Joxer left without saying goodbye. Now he wished he could see his old lover so he could ask the hundreds of questions that had been racing through his mind non-stop for days. He wanted to see Timo again so he could tell him how sorry he was, for not asking the right questions and not waiting for Timo so they could go away together.

The thought of what could have been had tortured him almost constantly since he found himself on Olympus, so much that sometimes it was hard to breathe. His mind kept going over the possibilities of what would have happened if he'd just waited in the woods for Timo to come back, or maybe if he'd sought refuge in Ares' temple. The thought had never occurred to him back then, not when his own father made more or less regular offerings to Ares. He never would have expected Ares to protect him, especially not after he was chased out of the temple when he was just a boy.

Yet he'd still prayed to Ares for protection, so some small part of him must have known that he could count on his god when he needed him. He was ashamed of himself for ever doubting that Ares would look after him, especially now that he was starting to understand all Ares had really done for him since the day he ran away from home. He hadn't been able to bring himself to ask Ares why he'd done so much for Joxer over the years. Part of him was afraid Ares would be angry at him for questioning his motivation, but mostly he was just afraid he wouldn't get a straight answer out of his god. The last thing he wanted to do was drive Ares away, even if Joxer was only a passing amusement for him.

He looked up when he heard a throat clear behind him, a hot blush staining his cheeks when he realized Ares was watching him. He wasn't sure how long he'd been sitting in the garden waiting, but there was no denying that that was exactly what he'd been doing. Ares seemed to know it, too, but he didn't mention it. Instead he took a few steps forward and sank onto the ground next to Joxer, drawing his legs up to rest his elbows on his knees.

"I trust I'm not interrupting."

"No, I…I was just…"

"Thinking," Ares supplied for him, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth as he watched Joxer's blush deepen. "You seem to do a lot of that."

"This garden is a good place to think. It's very quiet." Joxer would have rolled his eyes at himself, but he was already embarrassed enough without having to explain _why_ he was embarrassed.

"Indeed." Ares' voice rumbled in the stillness of the garden, sending a shiver down Joxer's spine that made him shift uncomfortably on the grass. And hadn't he just been thinking about how comfortable he was with Ares? So there was no reason for him to suddenly be nervous, because no matter how stunning Ares looked in black leather nothing had changed. He was still a god, and Joxer was just a mortal. A mortal that no one had ever cared much about, unless he counted Xena and Gabbie and that was only because they were in the business of protecting people that couldn't look after themselves.

The only reason he was nervous was because he'd spent the entire morning trying to figure out why Ares had suddenly taken such an interest in him when he'd had years to see that Joxer was unworthy of being one of his followers. Maybe it was just because Joxer was trapped on Olympus, he was convenient and Ares probably saw him as a novelty. The mortal who attacked his own father in the name of a love that had died years ago…but it had never really died, and he knew it probably never would.

"I've been thinking about asking Aphrodite to send me home." The words escaped his mouth before he realized he'd been thinking them, but as soon as he said them he realized that he wanted to know what Ares' reaction would be. He knew he shouldn't even hope that Ares would care, but he wanted to know if his god would be a little disappointed to see him go.

"And have you come to a decision?" Ares' expression didn't betray what he was thinking, but Joxer was almost sure that he'd hesitated for a second before he asked the question.

"I think it's best…for everyone. I need to get back, Xena and Gabbie will be worried. Besides, Aphrodite doesn't need me around, I'm sure I'm in the way."

"I hardly think your presence is a burden on my sister," Ares answered. His voice was as steady as it always was, deep and rich and far too mesmerizing for Joxer's own good. "As for my daughter, I believe Cupid spoke to her about your…situation."

"He did?" The idea of Cupid telling Xena what he'd done…heat crept back into his cheeks, and he looked down at the ground between them so he wouldn't have to see the pity in Ares' eyes. There was no way he could face Xena and Gabbie if they knew everything, what happened at his father's house and the reason he'd gone back there in the first place.

A hand landed on his shoulder, and he flinched at the unexpected touch. As soon as he looked up Ares pulled his hand away, and if Joxer didn't know better he would have sworn he saw hurt flicker in the god's eyes for a moment. "I believe he told Xena that you'd be staying with Dite for awhile. I don't think he told them why."

"Oh." Part of him was relieved to know that he wouldn't have to spend the rest of his life avoiding Xena and Gabrielle, it was bad enough that Ares knew what he'd done. He knew he should be at least a little embarrassed for attacking his own father the way he had, but he couldn't make himself regret it. He'd thought he left the grief behind years ago, and when it surged up again he'd reacted without thinking about the consequences. He wasn't really glad that his father was dead, but he couldn't say he was sorry for the way it had happened.

"I imagine you'll have a lot of questions to answer when you get back," Ares continued, leaning back on his elbows and stretching his legs out in front of him. He glanced up at Joxer and did his best to look serious, but Joxer could see the amusement lurking in his dark eyes. "Your little blonde friend has probably spun quite a few theories about your sudden departure."

Joxer found himself smiling at the thought of Xena and Gabrielle speculating about what he was doing on Olympus. He could only imagine what they'd come up with so far; knowing Gabbie's imagination she probably had him sacrificed to the god of klutzes by now. If there was a god of klutzes. He opened his mouth to ask, then thought better of it and shook his head. "I'm sure whatever she comes up with will be a lot more interesting than the truth. Maybe I'll just let her tell me what I'm doing here."

"She might have written a ballad about it already." Ares looked so serious that for a moment Joxer wasn't sure whether or not to laugh, but when he saw the corner of the god's mouth twitch his features relaxed into a grin.

"It's not that funny, she might have." The thought of Gabbie forcing Xena to listen to some ballad about him over and over evoked a laugh, and soon they were both breathless. "Poor Xena," Joxer said between gasps for breath. "She finally gets rid of me and she's got to listen to Gabbie immortalize me in song."

He drew in a deep breath and glanced over at Ares, but the god wasn't laughing anymore. He was watching Joxer, his expression thoughtful and just a little sad. "Your friends shouldn't make you feel like a burden."

His tone of voice made Joxer wonder if Ares knew what he was talking about, but he couldn't imagine the god of War worrying about what people thought of him. He'd admitted to being a little lonely, though, so maybe gods weren't so different from mortals after all. "They don't, I mean not really. We spend so much time together that we're bound to get on each other's nerves, right? You must get a little annoyed with Strife sometimes."

"You have no idea." Ares' smile returned at the thought of his nephew, and Joxer found himself smiling back again. "It's not the same, though. Strife's family. And we work together."

Joxer shrugged and looked away, his smile fading. "Xena and Gabbie are the closest thing to family I've really got. I barely see my brothers, and my father…well, you know what he was like."

"I should have done something about him years ago," Ares muttered, but Joxer wasn't sure whether or not he knew he'd said it out loud. He had a feeling the god hadn't meant him to hear it, but something about the way he said it sent a shiver up Joxer's spine.

"It wasn't that bad," Joxer said, his voice soft as he stole another glance at Ares. "At least I had a home. I don't even know…Ares, was he…I mean the boy your priests took in, do you know where he grew up? He told me he had a family, I never knew he was an orphan. I don't understand why he lied."

"I don't trouble myself with the details of most mortals' lives," Ares answered flatly. The abrupt change in his demeanor was nothing unusual, but it still sent a chill through Joxer. Part of him was hurt that Ares wouldn't think Timo was important enough to concern himself with, but mostly he was busy wondering what made him so different than 'most mortals' that Ares remembered fifteen years' worth of prayers. "Does it matter now? If he did lie, does it make a difference in how you feel about him? Would you have attacked your father if you'd stopped to think about the fact that he lied?"

"Yes…I mean no, it doesn't matter," Joxer answered. He knew he probably looked a little angry, but he hadn't been expecting that reaction to a simple question. "It just doesn't make any sense. What reason would he have to lie to me? We were just children when we met, I wasn't any threat to him."

"It's possible he was orphaned after you left." Ares pushed himself back into a sitting position, leaning close enough to Joxer that the mortal could feel hot breath on his skin. And he'd never really thought about whether or not gods breathed, but somehow it didn't come as a surprise to him when he felt the warmth against his cheek. Ares' thumb brushed across his cheekbone the same way he'd done that first day in the garden, and Joxer found himself holding his own breath as he waited for whatever came next.

He found himself stifling a disappointed sigh when Ares let go of him abruptly, leaning back to a safe distance before he continued. "You'd do well to leave the past in the past, Joxer. Some questions have no answers."

Joxer opened his mouth to answer, but before the words made it past his lips Ares was gone. He was used to the sudden departures by now, but Ares had always said goodbye to him in the past. At the very least he usually said something about seeing Joxer again, but this time Joxer was left wondering if he would. He wasn't sure what he'd done to upset Ares, but it was obvious he'd pushed too far. It was for the best, he reminded himself harshly as he pushed himself off the ground and turned in the direction of Aphrodite's temple. It didn't matter that Ares had been briefly distracted by him, or that Aphrodite was too kind to tell him when he'd worn out his welcome. It didn't even matter that he could still feel his god's touch on his cheek; it didn't mean anything, and once he was back in Greece they'd forget all about him again.

~

Ares reappeared in his own throne room, blasting a statue into a million pieces and then kicking over a table for good measure. It was ridiculous, he knew without having to be told that he was being completely irrational. He was jealous of himself, for Zeus' sake, and no matter how many times he told himself to get over it he couldn't. Every time he let himself think that maybe, just maybe Joxer was a little attracted to him, the ghost of his long-dead alter ego came between them again.

And what reason did Joxer have to be attracted to him? So far in the few times they'd spoken he'd given vague half-answers to all of Joxer's questions, his moods had shifted more abruptly than Strife's sanity, and he'd practically told Joxer to get over the fact that the person he loved was dead. As friends went Ares was doing the worst possible job he could, and the worst part was that he knew he could do better. Zeus, he sat there and listened to Joxer go on and on about what a wonderful friend Timo had been, how there was no one better in the world and how sorry he was to have let him go.

Of course Joxer had no idea of the truth, because if he did he wouldn't be saying things to make Ares at once ecstatic and miserable. Part of him loved the fact that Joxer was still so loyal to the memory of their love, but there was another part of him that really did wish Joxer would just get over it so he'd be free to fall in love with Ares. Again. Only this time there wouldn't be any pretense, no lies and ever more elaborate stories to cover up the lies that had come before. This time it would be just the two of them, with nothing between them but a little question of mortality that was easily taken care of.

He wasn't supposed to be trying to get Joxer to fall in love with him, he'd promised himself that he was just going to be Joxer's friend and leave it at that. The problem was that with every passing day it got a little harder to stop himself from acting on his feelings, and when Joxer smiled at him the way he used to when they were still lovers it was all Ares could do not to push him down on the ground and take him. Part of him had a feeling that Joxer wouldn't even put up a fight, but he didn't want Joxer that way. He wanted Joxer to love him – not some memory, some ghost from his past – just him, without the memory of a long-dead boy that had never really existed between them.

It was his own fault that Joxer was so hung up on…well, on him, but that didn't make it any easier to live with. Part of him wanted to just blurt out the whole ugly truth and see what happened, to see if Dite was right and Joxer would find a way to forgive him. Part of him wondered if Joxer hadn't already figured it out, and if he was just toying with Ares by asking all kinds of questions about Timo. He couldn't help wondering if Joxer was just trying to get him to slip up, to catch him in a lie he couldn't talk his way out of. Only Joxer wasn't capable of being that devious, not when it came to matters of the heart.

The fact of the matter was that Joxer was still in love with Timo, and there was nothing Ares could do to change it. The only chance he had was to tell Joxer the truth and risk the possibility of the only person he'd ever really loved hating him for the rest of his mortal life. He had no idea how he was going to say it, but there had to be a way to make Joxer understand that Ares had never meant to hurt him. He'd never meant to make Joxer suffer this way, and if he'd known…if he'd known he still would have fallen in love.

If he thought there was any chance he could get through to Joxer he'd take it, he'd run the risk of living with a memory between them. It would be preferable to running the risk of telling Joxer the truth and having him hate Ares, but he knew now that Joxer was never going to let it go. He'd spend the rest of his life finding new ways to blame himself for a lie, and he'd never be free to love anyone else as long as he lived with the guilt of Timo's death.

The whole thing was almost laughable, and if Ares wasn't so miserable he might have been able to see the humor in it. He knew he'd been given a second chance and he was grateful, but it didn't seem fair that a second chance meant competing against himself. And Joxer had had fifteen years to polish every memory, to make their six years together seem as perfect as possible. He'd had years to fine tune every moment of the two years they'd been lovers, to forget every time Timo had questioned him about the bruises his father had given him. He only remembered the best things about their time together, and there was no way Ares could compete with something so perfect.

All he could do was tell the truth; tell the truth, and then hope for the best. It was the first time since Joxer left home that he'd felt completely helpless, and even then he'd at least been able to answer Joxer's prayers. Now he wasn't sure he'd ever hear Joxer pray to him again, and that thought made his heart ache in a way he didn't even know was possible.

He took a deep breath and sent out a mental call to his sister, finally locating Dite in her own throne room. Before he had a chance to join her he felt her presence shift closer, and less than a second later she was standing in front of him. "What's up, bro? You look kinda bummed. Everything's okay with Joxie, isn't it?"

Ares took a deep breath and told himself he was not going to lose his patience. Screaming at her never made a difference anyway, she'd just flash back out of his temple and refuse to talk to him until he calmed down. When he was relatively sure he could hold a conversation without doing any physical damage he cleared his throat, doing his best to look as calm as possible. "Joxer's going to ask you to send him back to Xena."

"What? Why? What'd you do to him?"

The accusatory tone didn't really surprise him, but he still found himself taking another deep breath before he continued. "I didn't do anything," he answered, but he could tell by her expression that she didn't believe him. "He seems to think he's underfoot, that you're just too polite to tell him he's overstayed his welcome. The point is I need you to find a way to keep him here."

"Well I can't hold him prisoner, Ares. You know that. I've gotta have a reason to keep him here. There is a reason, right?"

"Yes, there's a reason," he said, rolling his eyes when she let out a little squeal and then clapped her hand over her mouth. "I need to tell him…I need to talk to him, but I need some time to find the right way to say it."

"It's easy, bro. You just open your mouth and the words come right out."

He swallowed the urge to tell her that for someone who was supposed to be looking out for Joxer she didn't know much about him at all. He needed her on his side if this was going to work, and he knew the only chance he had at making Joxer understand was to tell him before he found out some other way. "Just keep him here, I don't care how you do it."

"No problem," she answered, flashing a bright grin at him. Before he could stop her she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around his neck, planting a wet kiss on his cheek before she pulled away again. "I'm proud of you, bro. Just don't make him wait too long. He's a smart guy, even I can't put him off forever."

With that she was gone again, leaving Ares to stare at the spot where she'd been standing. As soon as she disappeared he regretted asking for her help; he should have just brought Joxer back to his temple and locked them both in until he made him understand, but he didn't want to run the risk of making him think Ares was insane. He was starting to feel a little insane, but if he could just make Joxer understand why he'd done what he had it would all be okay again. He just needed to find the right way to tell him the truth, and then everything would be exactly the way it should have been all this time.


End file.
